Let’s be clear about the line between fiction and reality in my philosophy of monsters. Andrew Vachss, novelist and warrior for the rights of children, once wrote — and I paraphrase — that you can have sympathy for how the monster became the monster without having sympathy for the monster itself. You can sympathize with the child whose experiences forged him into a soulless killer, but once he becomes a monster, sympathy ends.

Got that? Good.

Back to fiction, and my love of fictional monsters.

When I conceived of this anthology, it was with the same love of monstrosity that I described above. I knew that many other writers shared my love for such stories. Once again, as in The New Dead, I cast the net wide, luring in contributors from all genres, knowing that such variety would produce a wealth of different approaches to the subject matter. I talked about Frankenstein and Moby-Dick, and they got it, every last one of them. They understood that, even in the case of a monster who wants to eat us or stomp us or deceive us, sympathy is all in your point of view. Professor X wants mutants to live in peace with humans. Magneto thinks that humans are likely to exterminate mutants if mutants don’t get rid of humans first. You could make an argument that neither of them is wrong.

Stephen King once wrote — and again I’m paraphrasing — that the way we identify monsters is by collective agreement. “I’m okay, you’re okay, but eww, look at that.” I’m fairly certain the thing we’re pointing to, the thing that makes us scowl in disgust, is pointing back with the same look of revulsion. It’s all a matter of perspective. Eew, look at that. Eew, look at us.

Which brings us right back to the outsider, and the mirror. What we hide. What we fear in others and ourselves. Monstrosity.